Communications are frequently sent from an end user of a network to other end users of the same network. At a client computer of an end user, a communication can include ethernet frames that are sent from the client computer, via the client computer's media access controller, to an edge router of a service provider. If the communication is to remain an OSI model Layer 2 communication, the edge router will send a copy to each of the end users that are to receive the communication. Thus, if the communication has 1000 recipients, the edge router will generate 1000 copies and send those copies to the 1000 recipients.
As an alternative, use of multicast groups has been suggested to reduce the number of copies generated and transmitted. Networks can be optimized around individual multicast groups, as a communication is more likely to be sent to one or a few multicast groups rather than many. A communication from an end user can be received by an edge router and encapsulated into a packet. The edge router can generate a copy for each multicast group and send them using an Internet protocol address corresponding to the multicast groups.
The use of the same reference symbols in different drawings indicates similar or identical items.